


Like Water In Her Cupped Hands

by CabbageFlower



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s08e04 The Last of the Starks, F/M, Not A Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24076498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CabbageFlower/pseuds/CabbageFlower
Summary: Jaime and Brienne at Winterfell
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Like Water In Her Cupped Hands

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS NOT A FIX IT.  
> I know opinion is divided on "Its hot in here" but I did not like the scene and it gave me a bad feeling which was proved right not long after.  
> Which gave me more bad feelings which at the time I didn't know what to do with.  
> Now I know the answer is to read and write FanFic!  
> So this is an account of that episode and does not try to fix it or flatter either character. As such it is sad and angry.  
> Also - I have not rewatched the thing and am not going to so its from my memory.

When they were walking through the Riverlands with his hands bound and Jaime constantly talking, he had, in between mocking her appearance, boasting about his prowess with a sword and detailing the exquisite pleasures of his beautiful sister’s body, told her many stories about Tyrion, his cleverness and love of tricks. She had enjoyed some of the stories – mostly the stories about their childhood but overall she had not formed a good opinion of the Imp. She knew Jaime loved him and Lady Sansa acknowledged he had been kind so there must be something good in him but she found it hard to see. It felt like under his idle chatter there was always a trap or a nasty edge that she did not understand. So when he asked her about her maidenhead it broke through her warm cloud of pure happiness reminding her again of all the ways in which she did not move easily through the world.

But then Jaime came to her door and pushed past her into her room. He had been very drunk that night and clumsy, pushing and pulling at her - first with his barbed words and then with his hand, his body and his mouth and teeth. But if ever there was a time to be brave and honest it was then - after they had fought the dead and survived and she did not know if she would ever see him again. So she choose to step towards him not away, to undo her shirt and let him reach for her. 

She asked Lady Sansa if he could remain at Winterfell if he wished to. She practised the request beforehand, cautious not to reveal her hopes but still she stumbled as she spoke. “Since you vouch for him he may stay”, Lady Sansa had said. “But be very careful, Ser Brienne. A knight should not put off her armour too readily.”

It was agreed that he could not go south with the armies and there was nowhere else for him to go. And so he stayed - there in Winterfall with her - waiting for news. 

The Northmen hated him and he hated the North. The cold crept into him and he shivered under the warm clothes and furs she found him. The scars of his stump ached and he felt cramps in the missing hand. Lady Sansa treated him with barely respectful disdain but her Bannermen were more direct. They hissed “Kingslayer, Nedslayer, Wolfslayer” in the corridors. And he was bored. There was plenty of work but it was hard manual labour for which he didn’t have the skills or the patience or the hands. At times she wondered if she should assign him tasks to occupy his restlessness - but he was not a squire. Instead, as she went about her work, he trailed around the castle after her with no role or purpose or plan. 

Sometimes he helped her train the Winterfell guards or better, they sparred together. The exertion thrilled them both and afterwards he would be happy for hours. They sat together at supper and he told her more tales of his childhood or long detailed accounts of his many tourney victories. Every night he came to her room and lay with her. Even though no longer half starved and feverish, his body was familiar to her and she loved to run her hands lightly over him, carding through his hair and stroking his warm skin. Afterwards he would always bury his face in her neck, arching his spine into her touch and she felt his body relax into sleep. But in the night he would roll away and lie staring into the darkness. 

She drank moon tea. Lady Sansa had ordered that a jug of it be left in an alcove near the kitchens for any woman that needed it. Arya had told her where she could find it and been most insistent that she do so. “You can’t trust him” she had said. Brienne had protested, defending him as always but still she drank it every morning, scowling at the sour taste. Afterwards she was sorry that she had for she would have loved a child of Jaime’s. Afterwards she was glad she had and she need not fear the additional burden of a child. 

She tried so hard to please him, to keep his beloved handsome face from clouding over and becoming distant. There were times when she would look at him and catch him watching her; there were times when he looked happy or fond but it always passed. Whatever she did or said she could not keep that look there for long. It was like holding water in her cupped hands - it simply trickled out if she relaxed her tightly gripping fingers even slightly. 

She gave up her last scrap of pride to beg him to stay, for what was her pride compared with his life? The plea came from somewhere very deep and very young inside her and her voice was like a child’s. Something within her broke to let it out and she wept at the pain of it. It pained him too she saw. It pained him to go but still he left.

Although she had lived most of her life wanting fiercely she was not yet used to the ache of it. Some of the things she had wanted she had gained in the end, others she never would. But it seemed like a fault in the universe that you could want something so badly and it still not be granted to you. 

As she wept it felt like a wound that would never heal. That he rode away from her despite her pleading. Rode away leaving her in an empty courtyard, with her hands emptier than they had ever been.


End file.
